There was a press conference Thursday morning on the steps of San Francisco City Hall to address the noted uptick in homicides since the start of the year, which puts the city on track for potentially double the number of homicides we saw in 2025.
"We were at four homicides last year at this time; we are at 14 in San Francisco,” said District Attorney Brooke Jenkins at the press event, per KRON4. "This is a crisis point."
As SFist has been reporting since early January, homicides have been occurring at a disturbingly swift pace so far this year, following much celebration in December over the historic low — lowest since 1954! — rate of homicides in 2025.
Thursday's press conference seemed to be aimed at youth and street-gang violence, though it is not clear that this has been the driver of the majority of this year's 14 homicides. One fatal shooting in late March occurred in the Sunnydale housing projects, and there was a daytime shooting in the housing projects on Dakota Street in Potrero Hill in late February, with the victims in both cases being fairly young.
At least five of the killings have taken place in different parts of SoMa, with several others in the Mission, Tenderloin and Sunset districts.
City leaders were calling today for a 24-hour ceasefire, despite there not being any shootings reported this week.
Rudy Corpuz, Executive Director for the youth-focused United Playaz, spoke at the press conference, as KRON4 reports, saying that everyone needs to take part to end violence, including local organizations.
"And if we’re successful in San Francisco, then maybe we can do Oakland, then we can do Richmond, we can do Vallejo, and then we can do a 24-hour ceasefire for the whole Northern California," Corpuz said.
The speakers at the event included several San Francisco students, including Toni Bedford, the sister of Keenan Erwin, who was shot by a schoolmate at Philip and Sala Burton High School in early December. Erwin survived, and Bedford said, per KRON4, "As a big sister and as a leader, we have purpose, and the purpose is to push for peace."
San Francisco leaders, youth & community partners came together at City Hall today to call for an end to violence in our city.
— SF Department of Children, Youth & Their Families (@SF_DCYF) April 9, 2026
With the Mayor, District Attorney, SFPD Chief, and community & youth voices together, the message was clear: preventing violence takes all of us. pic.twitter.com/rzp2q8CBef
SFPD Chief Derrick Lew also spoke, saying "one homicide is too many, [and] one shooting is too many."
Lew addressed the uptick in homicides earlier this week, following the conclusion of the first quarter of the year. In an address to the SF Police Commission, Lew seemed to downplay the number of homicides, saying that there had not been notably more shootings in the first quarter of 2026 than in the first quarter of 2025, it's just that the shootings resulted in death more often.
He also stressed that numbers in all other categories of crime continued to be down.
Previously: San Francisco Now Averaging One Homicide Per Week In 2026, With Latest on Sixth Street
